From Executive summary: This report focuses on the government's efforts to enforce federal civil rights laws prohibiting religious discrimination in the administration and management of federal and state prisons. Prisoners in federal and state institutions retain certain religious exercise rights under the Constitution and statutes including the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUPIPA), the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), and the Civil rights of Institutionalized Persons Act (CRIPA). Many states have similar provisions in their state constitutions and in state law modeled on RFRA. These rights must be balanced with the legitimate concerns of prisons officials, including cost, staffing, and most importantly, prison safety and security. Reconciling these rights and concerns can be a significant challenge for penal institutions, as well as courts.

Prisoners in federal and state institutions retain certain religious exercise rights under the Constitution and statutes including the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), and the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act (CRIPA). Many states have similar provisions in their state constitutions and in state law modelled on RFRA. These rights must be balanced with the legitimate concerns of prison officials, including cost, staffing, and, most importantly, prison safety and security. Reconciling these rights and concerns can be a significant challenge for penal institutions, as well as the courts. The United States Commission on Civil Rights examined the legal foundation of prisoners' religious exercise rights, and the rules and guidelines related to religion in federal and state prisons and jails. It also researched the mechanisms federal and state prisons and jails use to facilitate religious requests (where feasible), and to record and process prisoner grievances related to religious exercise. This book focuses on the government's efforts to enforce federal civil rights laws prohibiting religious discrimination in the administration and management of federal and state prisons. This book consists of public documents which have been located, gathered, combined, reformatted, and enhanced with a subject index, selectively edited and bound to provide easy access.

From Executive summary: This report focuses on the government's efforts to enforce federal civil rights laws prohibiting religious discrimination in the administration and management of federal and state prisons. Prisoners in federal and state institutions retain certain religious exercise rights under the Constitution and statutes including the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUPIPA), the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), and the Civil rights of Institutionalized Persons Act (CRIPA). Many states have similar provisions in their state constitutions and in state law modeled on RFRA. These rights must be balanced with the legitimate concerns of prisons officials, including cost, staffing, and most importantly, prison safety and security. Reconciling these rights and concerns can be a significant challenge for penal institutions, as well as courts.

This book examines how prisons meet challenges of religious diversity, in an era of increasing multiculturalism and globalization. Social scientists studying corrections have noted the important role that religious or spiritual practice can have on rehabilitation, particularly for inmates with coping with stress, mental health and substance abuse issues. In the past, the historical figure of the prison chaplain operated primarily in a Christian context, following primarily a Christian model. Increasingly, prison populations (inmates as well as employees) display diversity in their ethnic, cultural, religious and geographic backgrounds. As public institutions, prisons are compelled to uphold the human rights of their inmates, including religious freedom. Prisons face challenges in approaching religious plurality and secularism, and maintaining prisoners' legal rights to religious freedom. The contributions to this work present case studies that examine how prisons throughout Europe have approached challenges of religious diversity. Featuring contributions from the UK, France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Belgium and Spain, this interdisciplinary volume includes contributions from social and political scientists, religion scholars and philosophers examining the role of religion and religious diversity in prison rehabilitation. It will be of interest to researchers in Criminology and Criminal Justice, Social and Political Science, Human Rights, Public Policy, and Religious Studies.

What is the nature and impact of faith and religion in prison? This book summarizes contemporary and cutting-edge research on religion in correctional contexts, enabling a scientific understanding of how prisoners use faith in their everyday lives. Religion long has been a tool for correctional treatment. In the United States, religion was the primary treatment modality in the first prisons. Only since the 1980s, however, have social scientists begun to study the nature, extent, practice, and impact of faith and faith-based prison programs. Bringing together the knowledge of scholars from around the world, this single-volume book offers readers a science- and research-based understanding of how prisoners use faith in everyday life, examining the role of religion in prison/correctional contexts from a variety of interdisciplinary and international viewpoints. By considering the perspectives of professionals actually working in corrections or prison settings as well as those of scholars studying religion and/or criminal justice, readers of Finding Freedom in Confinement: The Role of Religion in Prison Life can gain insight into the most contemporary research on religion in correctional contexts. The book contains data-driven, conceptual, and policy-oriented essays that cover major religions such as Christianity, Judaism, and Islam within correctional environments. It also addresses subject matter such as the roles of prison chaplains and correctional officers and the relationships between religion and common aspects of prison life, such as drug abuse, gangs, violence, prisoner identity, rights of prisoners, and rehabilitation.

What is the nature and impact of faith and religion in prison? This book summarizes contemporary and cutting-edge research on religion in correctional contexts, enabling a scientific understanding of how prisoners use faith in their everyday lives. Religion long has been a tool for correctional treatment. In the United States, religion was the primary treatment modality in the first prisons. Only since the 1980s, however, have social scientists begun to study the nature, extent, practice, and impact of faith and faith-based prison programs. Bringing together the knowledge of scholars from around the world, this single-volume book offers readers a science- and research-based understanding of how prisoners use faith in everyday life, examining the role of religion in prison/correctional contexts from a variety of interdisciplinary and international viewpoints. By considering the perspectives of professionals actually working in corrections or prison settings as well as those of scholars studying religion and/or criminal justice, readers of Finding Freedom in Confinement: The Role of Religion in Prison Life can gain insight into the most contemporary research on religion in correctional contexts. The book contains data-driven, conceptual, and policy-oriented essays that cover major religions such as Christianity, Judaism, and Islam within correctional environments. It also addresses subject matter such as the roles of prison chaplains and correctional officers and the relationships between religion and common aspects of prison life, such as drug abuse, gangs, violence, prisoner identity, rights of prisoners, and rehabilitation.

This volume offers a European overview of the management of religious diversity in prisons and provides readers with rich empirical material and a comparative perspective. The chapters combine both legal and sociological approaches. Coverage for each country includes historical background, current penitentiary organization, and recent changes or trends. In their exploration of legal aspects, the contributors look at such factors as the status of prison chaplains and regulations concerning religious practice and religious freedom. These include meals, prayers, and visits. The sociological analysis examines religious discrimination in prison, church-prison relations, conversion and proselytism, and more. The European coverage includes countries for which such information is seldom available. The book offers readers a better understanding of governance of religion in prisons. This text appeals to students, researchers and professionals in the field.